as sandy battered the eastern sea board 6 million customers were left in pitch black. that swath of the eastern united states essentially totally blacked out over the course of one day. and at this hour, more than 6 million electricity customers remain without power in the east. when they say this is the largest storm to have ever hit the east coast of the united states, the word largest in that phrase actually just means the physical area that is covered by this storm, which you can see in the fact that we had outages from virginia to maine. but in terms of the direct hit of this storm, part of what makes this a storm of national significance is that when it came ashore, it hit the most populated place in our country. it's not just new york media dysmorphia. this is the most densely populated region of the country. new jersey's population is the most densely in the area. it is greater than the population of maine, new hampshire, montana, nebraska, north dakota, south dakota, and wyoming combined. all in a state that's significantly smaller than even just new hampshire